by Julia London
“That’s not all of it, is it?” Anna demanded, her eyes narrowed. “What of poor Mr. Dudley? Have you impressed him into your service?”
“Poor…?”
“Have you the slightest notion of what is happening in your very own household?” she exclaimed with much superiority. “Mr. Dudley’s gout bothers him terribly, if you hadn’t noticed!”
He annoyed her further by smiling. “Oh, aye, lass, I’ve noticed it, all right. I’ve noticed it all me life, for Dudley is me family’s butler. It happens that he has come to London to help me as well.”
“Help you… what?” she tried.
He just laughed, his gorgeous lips sliding over his white teeth. “Ach, Anna!” he laughed. “I wouldna tell ye if ye were the last soul on this earth, and well ye know it! Ye are hardly to be trusted, are ye now?”
“You, an admitted imposter, would speak to me of trust?” she cried, incensed. “I am the only one in this room who can be trusted!”
He snorted his opinion of that.
“I am!” she insisted, pacing now. “Just because I’ve—All right, well, I’ve really pushed you into a bit of a corner, I’ll grant you that—but not because I wish you harm! Because I am rather in need of assistance!” she said earnestly. “And quite honestly, Grif, it is I who shouldn’t trust you, isn’t it? You are the one parading about as some Scottish earl when in fact you are… well, you are…” God in heaven, what was he?
Anna paused and sighed irritably to the ceiling. Truthfully, she had lain awake more than one night wondering why he was in London, why he wanted that dreadful little gargoyle so much that he would bargain for it. “Frankly, I’ve no idea who you might be, although a number of nefarious thoughts come to mind.”
“Aye?” he said, brightening. “Such as?”
“Such as murderer. Thief. Spy.”
“I beg yer pardon? No’ statesman? Earl? Perhaps even the bloody king of Scotland?”
“I was making a point. Why do you want that wretched gargoyle so badly that you’d come to London with a false identity?” she demanded. “Why shouldn’t you address your cousin directly?”
He laughed darkly. “Come, now, what could I possibly tell ye, given the circumstance? What assurances do I have that ye will no’ use it against me? Or repeat what I say to yer sister, or a friend—or the very person who would bring me harm?”
At the suggestion of someone besides her harming the pompous man, Anna’s curiosity was piqued so dramatically that she almost burst with it, and she quickly crossed her heart. “On my honor, you have my word. I will not breathe a word of it to another living soul!”
He chuckled and reached out to untangle a curl of her hair from her earring. “I’ve no’ seen such glee in a woman’s eye,” he said quietly.
That served only to pique what was now an insatiable curiosity. Grif seemed to read her mind, and, still chuckling, he dropped his hand and fell, unceremoniously, onto the settee. “No. I canna say,” he said cheerfully.
Anna was instantly beside him, sitting as close as she dared, her hands clutched tightly together on her knee, facing him. He grinned proudly, and his green eyes danced with the childish delight of having a secret.
But Anna was completely undeterred and inched closer to him. “I swear, I cross my heart, that I shall not breathe a word of it!” she promised, crossing her heart again.
“No,” he said again, casually shaking his head, and yawned, just like a lion—big and long and terribly nonchalant. “I canna trust ye—”
“But you can!”
“No.”
“Grif!” she exclaimed, and leaned forward, so that her head was in front of his and he had to look at her. “Whyever not?”
He grinned at her effort, caressed her cheek with his finger. “Because, lass, the secret involves the object of yer adoration and his family.”
“Really, what could Drake Lockhart possibly have done to you?”
“What the English have done to the Scots for centuries. Stolen what is rightfully ours.”
She scoffed at him. “Drake Lockhart would never steal!”
“Ye donna believe me? Then hear this,” he said, his voice going quiet. “Centuries ago, the Lockharts were split by civil war. One half—the cowardly half—fled to England. The other half—the true brave souls— remained in Scotland.”
Anna edged a little closer, all ears.
Grif suddenly sat up, so that his face was just inches from hers, and glanced around as if he expected someone to be nearby, listening. “When the cowards fled, they took something that was quite precious to the Scottish Lockharts. So precious that, decades later, the Scots came to London and took it back. But the English Lockharts could not bear to let the Scots have it, so they returned to Scotland and took it again.”
Anna nodded eagerly. “What? What did they take?”
He snorted. “The beastie, lass!”
“You mean they went back to Scotland for that gargoyle?” she exclaimed incredulously.
“’Tis a beastie!”
“But… why would they steal it?” she demanded, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
“Because of its value. But the Scottish Lockharts, they took back what was rightfully theirs. And the English came again, only this time, they didna know about the curse,” he whispered ominously.
“The curse?” she whispered excitedly.
“Aye. It was during the Jacobite War of ’46 …do ye know it?”
“Yes, yes,” she said hastily, inching toward the edge of the settee. “Those loyal to the deposed King James sought to restore his successors to the throne.”
Grif blinked with surprise. Anna frowned. “I told you that I was a student of Scotland.”
“Aye, that ye did. All right, then, when Cromwell and his murderers came to Scotland, among them was an English Lockhart. He came to Talla Dileas under the guise of friendship, but he stole the beastie, for he was an Englishman and, therefore, a bloody rotten bounder. But the laird of Lockhart was angry,” he said, ignoring Anna’s gasp of indignation, “and he went high into the Highlands to call on Donalda.”
“Donalda?”
“Aye, Donalda the henwife.”
Anna shook her head.
Grif sighed at her ignorance. “A magic woman, aye?”
“Oh! Yes, yes,” Anna said, and gestured for him to go on.
Grif grinned lopsidedly. “The laird called on Donalda and beseeched her to put a curse on the English Lockharts, which of course she was proud to do, for no self-respecting Scot can abide the English—”
“And?” Anna interrupted him.
“And she did.”
“So… what is the curse?” Anna asked, leaning forward.
Grif looked over his shoulder again, gestured for Anna to lean forward even more. She leaned so close that she could smell the balsam in his cologne, could feel his breath on her ear as he whispered, “The curse is that the Sassenach who takes possession of the beastie will forfeit possession of his…or her virtue.”
It took a moment for Anna to understand that he teased her, but she let out a cry of frustration and reared back. “What is the matter with you?”
Now he was laughing. “Ah, if ye’d seen yer eyes, lass!” he exclaimed through his laughter. “Big as moons, they were!”
“You’re not the least amusing!” she cried. “It’s absolutely wretched of you!”
“Aye, right ye are—’tis wretched of me, for ye will lose yer virtue without the help of the beastie, will ye no’?”
His implication shamed her, and she raised her arm, intending to slap him, but Grif easily caught her wrist and twisted her arm so that she fell against the back of the settee.
“What has angered ye, lass? That ye heard the truth? Or that ye will believe anything a man tells ye?”
“You bastard!” she hissed, but Grif just laughed irreverently and tightened his grip on her wrist.
Her eyes were shimmering with wrath, and Grif unexpectedly and uncharacteristicall
y took sensual delight in them. Anna struggled to free herself, but he easily pushed her back, trapping her with one arm against the settee, letting her squirm.
“You’re a liar!” she hissed at him.
“What, did ye think I’d confess all to ye, then?” he asked. “Did ye believe that holding me beastie hostage somehow gives ye the right to know me and mine?”
“I should think that having agreed to our arrangement, you might at least act the gentleman!”
“God blind me, why should I do that?” he asked, stopping her attempt to slide off the settee by pressing one knee on top of her leg. “Did ye no’ come here to learn how to seduce a man?”
That riled her to furious indignation and she struggled much harder.
“Ah, but its no’ a gentleman ye want, Anna. Ye want a man—a man to touch ye like ye desire to be touched.”
Her indignation turned to a shriek of pure fury, and she struggled violently now, managing to push his leg off of her and almost escaping him. But Grif was too strong for her—she could not prevent him from twisting her arm around her back and pushing her into him. They were half on, half off the settee; he dragged her across his lap, so that they were face to face, her body against his.
He could see Anna’s rage in the harsh rise of her chest. “You are a scoundrel,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “A blackguard, a rake—”
“But ye like that in a man, leannan.”
She floundered frantically like a large fish in his arms, but Grif was not of a mind to let go, and, in fact, he clamped his free hand on her shoulder. He was angry, too, had been for days, even weeks now, and worse, he enjoyed seeing the rabid flush of her skin, the fury filling her eyes. It was a taste, he thought, of her own medicine, a well-deserved call to truth.
“I should have gone to the authorities,” she hissed at him. “I should have handed them that blasted thing!”
“But if ye’d done so, ye’d no’ have had the opportunity to torment me!”
“Do you think I torment you?” she cried, incredulous, and threw back her head, shouting her laughter like a madwoman. “You’ve not even begun to know my torment!” And to prove it, she tried to kick him, but Grif pressed her leg against the settee with his thigh, effectively trapping her again. “What in God’s name is wrong with you?”
“I merely do as ye bid. And here is the last of today’s lesson,” he said, breathing harder from the exertion of restraining such a wild banshee. “Always make yer conversation engaging, for above all else, that will draw a man to ye. A keen wit and a pleasant way with words—no’ vitriol!”
“Vitriol!” she cried, ceasing her struggles for the moment to argue with him. “I have tried to converse with you, you blasted scoundrel, and I can say with all confidence that you’d not recognize a keen wit and pleasant way with words if they should rise up from the ash and poke you in the bum!”
Grif grinned at that. “Aye, ye’re quite the clever one, are ye no’? If ye could manage to be clever without being so bloody vile, and do so with an enchanting smile, there is naugh’ that would draw a man faster to yer side. A real man.”
“A real man does not appreciate either wit or conversation,” she said, panting. “His interest is drawn only to the palest of skin!”
“Ach,” he grunted, dropping his gaze to her bosom, enjoying the closeness of such a lovely pair of breasts. “’Tis no’ entirely true. A woman’s fair skin will indeed draw a man, but a man is equally drawn to vibrancy and intelligence in women.”
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Then what is it that draws you to my sister? For she is frightfully pretty, and perhaps even clever, but she does not spend as much as a moment practicing the art of conversation!”
“I’m attracted to her beauty—a liar I’d be if I said otherwise,” he admitted, moving his hand from her shoulder to her neck. “But I am drawn to more than beauty—I am drawn to a woman who can think on her own, who can parry with me, word for word.”
“Are you indeed?” Anna asked hotly. “Naught else?” she spat. “Not this?”
That was the moment she abruptly and rudely astonished him, threw him completely off kilter and sent him tumbling head over heels down a dangerous slope he had not seen until that moment.
She kissed him.
Mary Queen of Scots, but the wench lurched forward, pressing her lips to his in such a swift and violent manner that it toppled them both backward, so that she was lying partially atop him on the settee.
It was no sweet and chaste kiss meant merely as a flirtation, either. It was a kiss that was brimming with fire—unbridled, unfulfilled passion to which Grif could scarcely respond as her tongue was darting quickly into his mouth, her teeth grazing his lips as if she enjoyed some delicacy. And furthermore, he was keenly aware of her body on top of his, her breasts pressed firmly against his chest, the scent of her skin and hair, the sweet taste of her mouth, the succulent flesh of her tongue.
The sensation was so naked and pure that it poured like molten gold into his groin flaming sensations he had not felt more than once or twice in his entire life.
And then, just as surprisingly, she cried out against his mouth, pushed with both hands against his chest—he’d not even realized he’d let go of her—and rose above him, staring down at him, one side of her hair having come undone and drifting between them, disbelief filling her eyes as it must have filled his.
They stared at one another like that for a moment, a single moment in time that seemed, impossibly, more alive than all the moments he had ever lived put together. He saw the tears of fury welling in her eyes, and grabbed her head between his hands before they could fall, pulling her down to him again, returning her kiss with one as full of desire as he’d ever known.
Lord God, he was lost, lost in the feel of her body against his, the taste of her on his lips. They were wild; passion was flowing out of her and into him, and it seemed to Grif that she was trying to drink him in, much as he was trying to devour her. She moved, shifting, her hands running down his torso, then his arms.
They lost their precarious balance and fell as one off the settee, Grif grabbing her around the waist to stop her fall and bracing himself with his other arm so as not to crush her when they landed on the carpet.
Now she was beneath him, and her arms went round his neck, pulling herself up to him, feverishly devouring his lips as he was hers, in spite of the silken strand of hair that had somehow come between their lips. Grif eased them down onto the carpet, caressed her side, feeling the ribs of her corset beneath her gown, and moved higher, until his palm rested beneath the plump shapely globe that was her breast.
The moment he touched it, the moment he felt its weight in his hand, she panted into his mouth and suddenly arched her neck, let her head fall back to the carpet while her body rose up against him.
With frantic longing, Grif dropped his head to her bodice, mouthing the ripe mounds of flesh, burying his lips in the crevice between them, inhaling the sweet scent of lavender on her skin. He could feel her body swell and pulse beneath him, could feel himself spiraling down that golden path of desire, hard and throbbing with the hunger to be inside her.
And he might have found his way there, might have known that bliss had Anna not suddenly bucked beneath him, abruptly toppling him over onto his side.
She scrambled to her knees, looked down at him, wild-eyed. Her gown was twisted on her body, her hair a dark sweeping mess. “Sweet Jesus!” she whispered frantically, and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth before struggling to stand up.
Slowly, a wee bit stunned, Grif came up on his elbow as she shook out her skirts, tried to soothe the thick strands of hair that had tumbled loose from their coif.
“This is… this is insupportable,” she said quietly, in something of a daze.
“Insupportable?” he echoed as he tried to catch his breath. “I rather enjoyed it.”
She jerked a horrified look to him. “No, no! You mustn’t say that!”
�
��Why no’?” Grif asked, coming easily to his feet and straightening his own clothing—his trousers being the more difficult item as he had a terribly large erection. “Why should I deny that I enjoyed kissing ye?”
“Because—” She stopped there, her eyes going wide with fright—or perhaps awe, Grif hoped—at the sight of his erection pressing against his trousers. “Oh my God. Oh—it’s not proper!” she cried, whirling away from the sight of him and darting to the window. She took a deep breath, tried to adjust her sash. “Dear God, I’ve already pushed the bounds of propriety to come here at all! I’ve risked everything by doing it and now… now to have… kissed you like a strumpet—”
“No’ a strumpet,” he quickly interrupted her as he attempted to retie his neckcloth, which had mysteriously come quite undone. “Ye are a woman filled with passion—”
“Yes! I won’t deny it! I am filled with passion—but not for you!” she cried over her shoulder.
“Indeed?” he snapped irritably. “Yer actions would suggest otherwise!”
She whirled around at that, opened her mouth to speak, but saw his struggle with his neckcloth and quickly closed the distance between them and pushed his hands away to tie it for him. “My actions were ill-advised and born in a heated moment of…of anger!” she insisted as she quickly and expertly tied his neck-cloth. “And you must take your share of responsibility, sir, for you held me against my will—”
“Only because ye moved to strike me!” he sharply reminded her as she smoothed the ends of his neck-cloth so that they hung properly. “Mi Diah, but ye are the most vexing lass!” he said gruffly, pushing a strand of hair from her temple and behind her ear before trying to soothe the rest of it. “Ye donna listen!”
“On the contrary, I do listen, but frankly one can make very little sense out of the things you say!”
“Why make sense of it at all, leannan?” he demanded, trying to comb his fingers through her hair. “My life is no’ yer concern, is it, then?”
